While the devs couldn’t find funding for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, pitching the idea of similarly-themed game set in the free-to-play online FPS world got them the backing they needed. This new project, Survarium, is set in a near-future Earth and focuses on a mass-scale ecological catastrophe.

UPDATE: The following tweet reveals that funding wasn’t the issue, but rather securing the IP rights:

Money was not the issue. We were not able to secure the IP rights and thus unable to continue development.

“Technology versus nature, rational versus mystical. Such a confrontation enables us to take a new look at the current happenings in our world. Survarium will offer players an atmospheric world of civilization crash, filled with factions and loners, stalkers and hunters surviving in a wild anomalous environment.”